Gov. Abbott says American freedom threatened by `our own leaders’

Chicken and asparagus were on the menu as the Texas Public Policy Foundation celebrated the opening of its new six-story headquarters a mere 352 yards from the state Capitol Tuesday. Gov. Greg Abbott provided the red meat with a speech that warned that Americans’ liberty and freedom are under siege from their own government, and that only Texas can ride to the rescue.

“You all remember that Ronald Reagan forewarned that freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction,” Abbott said. “Our generation confronts that very threat today, and the irony is the threat is not coming from some foreign government or some foreign land. The threat to our freedom is coming from our own government and our own leaders.”

“We are at a time of crisis and Texas must lead the way out of these times of crisis,” Abbott said. “We have to fight our way through a thicket of growing government oppression using liberty as both the saber that will cut the pathway clear, as well as the compass that will point the direction in which we are to go.”

Abbott sounded more like the Abbott of the 2014 gubernatorial election, or his former protege in the Attorney General’s Office, Sen. Ted Cruz, who is now seeking the Republican presidential nomination, than the more low-profile, low-key Abbott who has mostly stayed out of the limelight and kept his rhetoric firmly in check since being inaugurated as governor.

Read more: http://www.statesman.com/news/news/state-regional-govt-politics/gov-abbott-says-american-freedom-threatened-by-our/nkzKs/